Resources
Guides for running a restaurant
Short guides to food cost, kitchen tickets, menu analysis, going live, VAT billing and closing the drawer. They are useful whichever system you run.
All guides
- Calculate true food costMost food-cost numbers are flattering because they are divided by a price that still has VAT in it. Here is the arithmetic, done properly, on one plate of momo.Control, 6 min
- Setting up KOT routingEvery ticket should land at exactly one station, in the order it will be cooked. A practical guide to stations, categories and the pass.Run, 5 min
- Menu engineering, without the jargonSort every dish by how often it sells and how much it earns. Four boxes, four different jobs, and none of them is “delete the dogs”.Understand, 7 min
- The going-live checklistWhat to set up, test and rehearse before the first real service on a new system. Written from the checklist we use ourselves.Launch, 6 min
- Nepal VAT billing basicsVAT at 13%, inclusive menu prices, PAN on the bill and what IRD’s e-billing rules ask of software, with a plain statement of where DataRestro stands.Comply, 6 min
- Closing the cash drawerExpected, counted, difference. A short routine that turns the end-of-night count from an argument into a number.Run, 4 min
Food cost calculator
Food cost calculator, with VAT taken out
Enter a plate cost and a menu price. If the price includes VAT (in Nepal it must), see how much the usual calculation flatters the dish. The numbers start as the illustrative momo plate from the food cost guide.
Food cost
37.2%
on a net price of
424.78
- If you divide by the menu price
- 32.9%
- Understated by
- 4.3 pts
- Contribution per plate
- 266.78
Arithmetic only, in your browser. Where service charge is itself taxed, VAT applies on top of it, which is how this divides it out.